So I'm talking to a Republican tonight about health care reform. He tells me that we have the best health care in the world. He tells me "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

As some here know, I used to work as a mechanic at a glove factory. At the factory, when you needed a new part for your machine, you walked to the parts room, entered you employee ID, and signed out the part you needed. Across the PC screen was the mantra: "If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It."

Now, this did not mean that we mechanics should shy away from fixing the machine? No. It meant that we should stretch springs and sharpen cutters and bend pressure plates before we replaced them.

Any mechanic worth his salt, and I was pretty damn good, could stretch a defective part for hours, if not days. As long as it kept spitting out good gloves, all was well. And even if sub par gloves came out, the company sold them at a lower price.

This is, in my opinion, what the health care debate has boiled down to. Just keep the machine running as cheaply as possible. Doesn't matter that the stretched spring will break during the next shift, so long as it keeps spitting out gloves until our shift is over.

So yeah, we can pass a health care bill without a public option. And yeah, it may save us a few bucks in the short term. But I can promise you that the stretched spring will eventually break, that the knife will eventually dull, and both will need replacement.

It is now up to Congress and Obama to decide whether they want to replace the faulty part now or pass it on to others who may wish to run the machine to exhaustion. I say let's spend the money now and look toward the future. Otherwise, like the machines I once fixed, our system will be sold for scrap metal.

A couple maxims from my upbringing have sprung forth tonight:

1- If you have nothing good to say about someone, say nothing.

2- Never say something behind someone's back that you would not say to their face.

It seems that I have broken one of these rules. I made a comment that hurt someone's feelings, someone that I care about very deeply.

Personally, I am a jokester. Some of my jokes are crude, rude, or filled with dark humor that nobody but me understands.

This brings me to my point. I firmly believe that every action, regardless of intention, will elicit a reaction. Perhaps a positive action will create a positive reaction, as we all hope. But sometimes a positive reaction to some will cause a negative reaction to others.

In the world of blogs and emails and chat rooms, things can be taken the wrong way. Words without human emotion and expression can easily be mistaken as a slight. So I urge my fellow bloggers to take a step back before clicking the send button. To think about how others may be affected by the words you have written.

Yes, I am an advocate of unadulterated free speech. Yes, I will likely break this rule from time to time. But if we all keep the feelings of others in our minds before pointing and clicking, perhaps the level of discourse will improve, and good feelings preserved.

I'm not an overly religious guy, but if I had to nominate someone for sainthood it would be my late grandmother. This woman never uttered a bad word about another human being, loved everyone regardless of their shortcomings, and expected nothing but love in return.

Grandma died last week. It was, for lack of a better term, a pretty shitty death. The cancer was everywhere and the pain was intense. Even in the trying and terrible last days, humans did what humans do, argue.

See, grandma had a will but not a living will. It was not until after the diagnosis that her eldest son took her to do that. It was also during this time that said son became executor and named his sister power of attorney.

What follows is a very ugly story. The story of a dying woman being berated over last-minute requests for insurance policy changes and relatives being strong-armed to witness death-bed confessions.

The entire family is now ripped apart, anathema to the wishes of my grandmother. Perhaps is this conversation was done before she had two months to live things would have gone more smoothly. But alas, there was no "death panel."

I should also say that grandma was on government insurance, aka Medicare. They did not euthanize her. Instead they set her up with medication, a hospital bed, and a hospice nurse so that she could die in her home, per her wishes.

So let us not be too hard on "death panels." Without them, we are left to the whims of assholes and lunatics.

So I was prancing around the Internet today and came across a very interesting story. It seems that Florida Gov Charlie Crist attributes his pleas to God via notes placed in the Western Wall in Jerusalem for the lack of hurricanes in Florida during his tenure:

Crist told a group of real estate agents Friday that he's had prayer notes placed in the Western Wall in Jerusalem each year and no major storms have hit Florida.

Crist noted that just before his election in 2006, Florida had been affected by a total of eight hurricanes in 2004 and 2005.

"Do you know the last time it was we had a hurricane in Florida? It's been awhile. In 2007, I took my first trade mission. Do you know where I went?" asked Crist, a Methodist.

He then told of going to the Western Wall and inserting a note with a prayer. He said it read, "Dear God, please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie."

He went on to say that no, it he should take no credit. It was God, after all, who made the final decision. Crist did not mention, however, whether God was responsible for the hurricanes in other locations during that time, nor why he prayed only for the state of Florida. I suppose God prefers specifics. 

What really got me was the similarity to another high-profile figure who placed a note in the Western Wall. He never announced the contents of his note (which was removed by a resident student) to the public because, well, you really are not supposed to do that:

A written prayer that Barack Obama left this week in the cracks of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, asks God to guide him and guard his family, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday.

The paper's decision to make the note public drew fire. The rabbi in charge of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitz, said publishing the note intruded in Obama's relationship with God.

"The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them," he told Army Radio. The publication "damages the Western Wall and damages the personal, deep part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves," he said.

Now, Obama does get points for specifics here, what with just the family and all. But then Obama didn't run around telling people that he and his family are healthy because of a private note he put in the Western Wall.

I am not an overly religious person. I do identify as Jewish, even though I have never formally converted. That said, maybe Obama used a photo-op at the Western Wall to curry political favor with the Jewish vote. Distasteful? Maybe.

But Crist took it to another level, basically telling the Jews of Florida that he, with his pipleine to God via the Western Wall, is keeping them safe from hurricanes..with a photo of the note and recent weather patterns as proof.

If Crist really believes this, and it seems he does, I would encourage him to take the next step and convert. It's obvious that our God has taken favor with him. Perhaps if Crist converts he can eliminate all of Florida's ills, real or percieved. He must ask himself, What Would Yahweh Do?

Over at the mothership Josh asked a very reasonable question:

We spent most of Monday reporting on these tea-bagging crowds going to Democratic health care town hall meetings to shout down the hosts and shut the events down. It's classic agitprop, very akin to the 'Brooks Brothers riot' down in Florida during the recount.

But where's the other team?

Folks can whine on endlessly about outfits like Freedom Works putting these rackets together. But if the president's plan has any public support they should be able to get supporters to these events too, right? Not to pull the Black Shirt routine but to provide some public demonstration that there's real public support for making reform a reality.

If there is.

So that's the question. Where's the other team?

Allow me to answer that question as succinctly as possible:

Red Team: No! No! No! No! No! No! Stop killing old people!! Stop destroying the economy!! Stop being a socialist!! No! No! No!

Blue "Team:" We are currently scoring the health care bill in order to ensure profitability for insurance companies and debating whether the public option is preferable to the co-op option and whether the blue dogs and yellow dogs and other dogs all get fed and no we will not kill your grandmother and maybe we will raise taxes but not your taxes and maybe you will be covered by this plan but maybe you won't and we really need to look at what business really is a small business and maybe there will be a surtax or some other tax and it should save money in the long run but the CBO said it would and then they said they werent sure so just give us some time and we will answer all these questions in the meantime we will hold town halls to answer constituents' questions even though we really have no answers because we have no clear bill and what we hear from their many opinions will help us settle on a bill and we will call that bill health care reform.

Red Team: No! No! No! No!

Blue "Team:" Well, we don't have 60 votes because Byrd and Ted are sick and we don't have 58 votes because of the blue dogs and if we hold back the progressives will vote against and if we go to far the blue dogs will kill it and we need Republican votes and cloture and reconciliation and filibuster and did we mention blue dogs??

America: What in the holy hell are you people doing? We support health care reform. We support a public option. A ton of us now support single payer. We have voted you into office for (at least) two straight cycles. The right has lost its mind. What more must we do to convince you to govern?? Maybe a pretty please? With sugar on top?

Blue "Team:" If you can donate some more cash, and elect some more Democrats. If we only had 535 Democrats and a Democratic president and nine liberal SCOTUS justices, we could really get things done. Aside from that, the Republicans and the blue dogs, have we mentioned the blue dogs, will continue to obstruct the will of the people.

America: My head hurts.

 

 

 

It has been quite a while since I have blogged here. I have generally been sitting on the sidelines watching health care reform spiral out of control, banks taking TARP money then paying bonuses exceeding profits, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rage on, Obama's birth certificate faux-controversy, etc, etc.

What I have witnessed was a small boon to the auto-industry. Basically, the "Cash for Clunker" program allowed consumers to trade in their gas-guzzling, broken down, or otherwise used car for a new one in exchange for a hefty government rebate. A fantastic plan, imo, that creates and/or saves jobs, gets some money back for taxpayers who now have a vested interest in the auto industry, and helps curb global warming.

The program was very successful. And we all know how we treat successful programs:

From MSN:

The government plans to suspend its popular "cash for clunkers" program amid concerns it could quickly use up the $1 billion in rebates for new car purchases, congressional officials told The Associated Press late today.

 The Transportation Department called lawmakers' offices to alert them to the decision to suspend the program at midnight Friday.

Through late Wednesday, 22,782 vehicles had been purchased through the program and nearly $96 million had been spent. But dealers raised concerns about large backlogs in the processing of the deals in the government system, prompting the suspension.

Bill Golling, owner of Golling Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., told the Detroit Free Press that his dealership had sold 80 vehicles already under the program.

 "It's working so well I've got people mad at me because I can't take care of them," he said.

 The popularity of the program raised concerns that with about 23,000 dealers taking part in the program, auto dealers may already have surpassed the 250,000 vehicle sales funded by the $1 billion program.

 

That's right, folks. In the midst of getting very little right under admittedly adverse situations, we get one program that works so well we have to scrap it. Such is the thinking in DC these days. We get what we pay for. Cash for Clunkers indeed.

I was talking with some wealthy, pro-life activists this evening and came up with an idea that they wanted no part of. I agreed that abortion would be made illegal, but that every pro-life American would adopt one child.

This caused a huge debate, which I countered point-by-point. Allow me to share their concerns and my answer:

1: There are not enough babies to adopt.

There are 300 million people in the US. There are close to 2 million abortions preformed annually in the US. Of these 300 million, odds are that at least two million are rabidly pro-life.

2: Making people take in a child they do not want is an unfair intrusion into their lives.

Well, if you want these kids to live, it should not be an intrusion. You are saving their lives. Also, if you don't want the child, why should the mother?

3: How do we know that these children will go to pro-life, stable homes?

We have the census and tax returns. Just check the box that you will take one of these kids, and only those with a certain income level will be accepted as parents.

4: Why should we be punished because people cannot keep their legs closed.

The continuation of our species depends on people not keeping their legs closed. We could ban sex and see how that goes. But anyway, I thought this was about saving the children.

Of course we all know how this debate ends. They say that ending abortions will stop irresponsible sex and in the cases that it does not well, forget about the mother and the child. 

These are generally the same people who love war but will never join the military and discourage their children from doing the same while simultaneously advocating military recruiters on college campuses.

Only in America....

When my factory shut down I went to school. Had no idea what to take so I got into Criminal Justice and Government/Politics. I chose that major because, after watching endless Law and Order reruns, it seemed feasible..fruit of the poisonous tree and whatnot.

Along the way I met many people. I volunteered for many political campaigned and interned for many elected officials. Did I make a difference on policy issues? Maybe. Was I personally fulfilled? Sure. But where did it really get me.

Fast forward to today. My grandmother, who helped raise me during my parents' divorce, has terminal cancer. Two months to live is the prognosis. This is a saint of a woman. One of her last wishes: to have just a moment with my cousin, the youngest grandson, who is currently in prison.

Because of the people I met during my education, it took three emails and two phone calls to make a one hour visit happen week after next.

My point is, sometimes things do happen for a reason. Maybe it's god, maybe it's karma, or maybe it's just dumb luck. But I'm feeling really good about the circle of life right about now.

The New York Times focused on a Department of Labor study that calls into question the efficacy of job retraining programs. Here is the salient graf:

Tens of thousands of laid-off workers like Mr. Hutchins have turned to retraining as a lifeline. Yet for all the popularity of these government-financed programs, there are questions about whether they actually work, even as President Obama's stimulus plan directs $1.4 billion more to retraining and other services for people who have lost their jobs.

In Michigan, where the unemployment rate in May was 14.1 percent, the nation's highest, 78,000 people are enrolled in the state's No Worker Left Behind program and 7,800 are on the waiting list. At the Michigan Works job center here, where Mr. Hutchins applied for retraining money, the wait to attend an orientation session is up to two months.

Nonetheless, a little-noticed study the Labor Department released several months ago found that the benefits of the biggest federal job training program were "small or nonexistent" for laid-off workers. It showed little difference in earnings and the chances of being rehired between laid-off people who had been retrained and those who had not.

In interviews, the authors of the study and other economists cited several reasons that retraining might not be effective. Many workers who have lost their jobs are older and had spent their lives working in one industry. In need of a job right away, many pick relatively short training programs, which often have marginal benefits. Job retraining is also ineffective without job creation, a point made by several economists who have long cautioned against placing too much stock in it. Finally, workers trying to pick a new field cannot predict the future of the labor market, especially in a time of economic upheaval.

 

The reason I find this especially interesting is because back in 2001 I, along with hundreds of my co-workers, entered the life worker retraining. When the factory shutters you have four basic options:

1- Retire

2- Technical Diploma

3- Two-Year Degree

4- Find a New Job

 

In my experience, only a fraction chose option one. This makes since most working people are doing so because they can't afford to retire. A decent bloc chose option four, but the majority at least dipped their toes into the retraining waters.

Retraining looks very attractive to the newly unemployed. Not only can you learn a new trade or get an education, but you can also extend your unemployment benefits throughout retraining, in some cases up to two years.

The workers that tended to be most successful were those who entered technical training. This includes mechanics, truck drivers, nurses, and to some extent IT professionals. In most cases the pay rate was comparable to the previous jobs and the market in these fields was pretty competitive.

Where the biggest drop came was in those who headed to college. Some of the older workers had not entered a classroom in decades and a large overall percentage lacked even basic computer literacy. The majority dropped out without completing a semester and many others switched majors a few times before giving up. Very few of us, and mainly the younger bloc, completed the two-year degree.

Now that I have provided some background, let me get down to the nitty gritty.

First, retraining assumes an open labor market for the retrained workers. The jobs once available to these workers are drying up, many never to return. We need to provide grants for community colleges and technical schools who offer innovative curriculum such as alternative energy.

Second, retraining isn't a catch-all. Some people are better suited for certain fields. Instead of sending people out blindly into the retraining market into the hands of sometimes ill-equipped unemployment workers and community college advisers, there needs to be a resource to guide workers in the right direction. There should also be a greater availability of remedial courses for those who need basic skills but do not plan to enter full retraining.

Third, we need to adjust the unemployment system to extend benefits for those actively seeking work but unable to attend retraining. As it stands, a worker can be forced to sign up for courses he has no interest in completing just to gain a benefit extension. I don't believe this is widespread nor to I necessarily blame these folks for making the best of a flawed system. A simple extension option could prevent this.

Fourth, health coverage should be provided to workers during retraining. You get laid off with a family of four and your COBRA is going to cost more than your mortgage. It is hard to focus on education when the medical bills become overwhelming. Hopefully the upcoming health care reform will make this point moot, but I felt it worth mentioning.

Like the Labor report and the Times article, I concede that worker retraining is flawed. But it is necessary and can be fixed with a few adjustments. In the short-term this may be costly, but if it actually makes retraining a priority rather than a talking point everyone wins. We just can't go about it half-heartedly in the current job market or the negative results will worsen.

 

 

 

Tom Goldstein over at SCOTUSblog has a great piece reflecting on the recent Supreme Court term and the future of that body. Even if Sotomayor is confirmed (as is probable), Goldstein sees the court continuing a rightward trend through Obama's second term (which seems likely, if not probable).

Here is what strikes me most about this Term.  The Court is moving steadily in the direction of rolling back Warren Court-era precedents that conservatives view as significant overreaching of the judicial role.  To be clear, that isn't the Court's principal occupation.  Most of its docket is filled with important but ordinary questions of federal law.  But it is a significant trend.

I am struck in particular by the opinions of the Chief Justice that seem to lay down markers that will be followed in later generations of cases.  NAMUDNO details constitutional objections to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act that seem ready-made for a later decision invalidating the statute if it is not amended.  Herring contains significant language that can later be cited in favor of a broad good-faith exception to the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule that applies to individual police mistakes.

If I'm right about the direction of the case law, the Court's methodology is striking.  It is reinforcing its own legitimacy with opinions that later can be cited to demonstrate that it is not rapidly or radically changing the law.

He goes on to say:

Later in his term, President Obama will likely replace Justice Stevens with someone else on the left.  If he is reelected in 2012, he will replace Justice Ginsburg with someone on the left.  Nothing changes.

It isn't until the election of 2016 at the earliest that there is a real prospect for a significant shift to the left in the Court's ideology.  Actuarially, that election is likely to decide which President appoints the successors to Justices Scalia and Kennedy (both on the right, and both 73 now) and Justice Breyer (on the left, and 70 now).  Absent an unfortunate turn of health, between now and the summer of 2017 there is no realistic prospect that the Court will turn back to the left.  Over the course of eight years, it is possible to take enough measured steps to walk a marathon.

That isn't to say that the conservatives have the votes to undo the legacy of the Warren Court.  The contrast between the five-to-four Caperton (constitutionalizing a right in extreme cases against decisions by a judge in favor of a supporter) and Osborne (rejecting a claimed due process right to DNA testing) demonstrates that Justice Kennedy is far from committed to the project.  So too do his narrower opinion in Parents Involved and his refusal to overrule the exclusionary rule.  Also, he will not retreat from providing a fifth vote on certain questions of executive power, the death penalty (execution of minors and the mentally retarded), and gay rights.

But Justice Kennedy is not the swing vote of Justice O'Connor, and on questions like race, religion, abortion, and campaign finance I think he is ready and willing to continue to move the law.  He voted with the left in five 5-4 decisions this Term.  But in every case that I view as genuinely important and ideologically freighted, he voted with the right:  Ricci, Iqbal, Bartlett, Osborne, Penn Plaza, Gross, Herring, Flores, and Montejo.  Caperton is the only arguable counter-example.

I have just a few thoughts on this.

First, you should read the whole piece. It's very thoughtful and informative.

Second, while I really find the SCOTUS fascinating (and important) as the last stop in our system of checks and balances, I find it becoming too political for my taste. The right selectes and confirms right wing Justices, same for the left. Left wing justices decide their retirement plans based on political timing, same for the right. And you can usually predict with high accuracy how the court will rule before the first oral argument is made.

Finally, things being as they are, the makeup of the court is a big deal in presidential elections. My guess is that in 2012 Scalia (less likely Kennedy) with throw a few winks and nods toward retirement, throwing the right into a fit. This seems to me like a boon to the religious right who have suffered mightily among recent scandals and could also make Obama more cautious on his second-term appointments. 

 

 

 

Now that a guy has opened fire at the Holocaust Museum killing a security guard and another guy has killed an abortion doctor, one must wonder whether this is a sign of things to come. The latter says yes, it is, and he knows so.

The man accused of killing a high-profile abortion doctor said from his jail cell Sunday that similar violence was planned across the nation for as long as the procedure remained legal. When asked whether his statement was referring to another shooting, Roeder refused to elaborate. It was not clear whether Roeder knew of any impending violence. Law enforcement authorities said they did not know whether the threat was credible.

Maybe I'm crazy, but shouldn't we, as Americans, do everything in our power to keep the homeland safe. Dick Cheney says so:

From the beginning of the program, there was only one focused and all-important purpose. We sought, and we in fact obtained, specific information on terrorist plans. It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so. Nor are terrorists or those who see them as victims exactly the best judges of America's moral standards, one way or the other.

Plus, according to the Bybee memo, it isn't really torture:

The waterboard, which inflicts no pain or actual harm whatsoever, does not, in our view, inflict "severe pain and suffering". Even if one were to parse the stature more "finely" to attempt to treat suffering as a distinct concept, the waterboard could not be said to inflict severe suffering. The waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode, lacking the connotation of a protracted period of time generally given to suffering.

So we can waterboard terrorists who we think may have information on future attacks, but we can't waterboard terrorists who openly admits knowledge of future attacks? Either waterboarding is a legal tool when used to keep the country safe from attack or it isn't.

At the very least can't we deprive Roeder and Von Brunn of sleep and rations? Maybe send them to Gitmo because our prisons can't handle them?

 

You have probably read the term "green shoots" as related to the economy. This, of course, is a term that means the first signs of growth after seeding. What is making economists nervous is the fact that many key growth indicators are either mixed or unstable.

I refer to this situation as "brown shoots." You can seed and fertilize all you like, but heatwaves and droughts can still wreak havoc on your lawn. The grass is there, but the tint is an ugly brown. Even as it grows, it isn't pretty.

This is what I see happening to the economy right now. Obama, the Fed, etc, have done everything they can (short of taking extreme measures that could rip the country apart) but the reults remain tenuous. Let me tell a personal story that I think best reflects the situation.

Two things happened to me recently: the economy tanked and my student loans capitalized. I reacted in the usual way. First, I made financial cutbacks. Second, I began to pay down debt. Third, I began to pay down debt.

These things worked well for a while. The cutbacks and savings actually offset the debt reduction to the point that I could spend a little more. Rent a movie here, eat out there. No big ticket items, of course, but spending nonetheless.

Then my son lost his job. So I dipped into the savings to keep his rent and utilities paid until he found a new job. At the same time the little spending that I did dried up. After a few months he got back on his feet and things went back to normal, not the old normal, but the post-recession normal.

Shortly thereafter my daughter lost her home to foreclosure. Again, I dipped into the savings until she could, as a low-income worker, get into HUD-based housing. It didn't take long to find out that HUD is massively under-funded and so I had to borrow in order to get a roof over her head, as well as her three children.

So now I find myself back to square one. The savings are exhausted, all of the repaid debt has been replaced with more debt, and all disposable spending is slashed.

My gut tells me that the situation is the same across the country. It may not be helping out kids. It may be a job loss, or a health care emergency, or a foreclosure. Our best case scenario, at least for the short-term, may be two steps forward and one step back at best, the reverse at worst.

At the very least, this may help explain the current mixed indicators in the economy as a whole.  

Back when I was young I would go cross country in the summer in my grandpa's 18 wheeler. I've been through well over half the states in the union but never really got to spend time in many of them. Recently, a fellow member of the Cafe Chat Room encouraged me to share some of the stories here.

Without further ado:

Many may know the famous CCR song Lodi. Well, I was actually stuck in a Lodi motel and missed the first three days of school back in North Carolina. To my father's chagrin, grandpa decided a trip to Oregon was necessary before we headed back east.

Speaking of California, one year the AC broke down from Phoenix to LA. Grandpa, of course, could only get the AC fixed by his AC guy in LA. That's 400 miles of  pure heat, the kind of heat that takes your breath away.

Alcatraz is visible from the Oakland Bay Bridge. Not so much from a picture taken on a disposable camera at 90 miles an hour.

The casinos in Laughlin, Nevada has great arcades for kids.

The Mojave desert is very, very windy, especially at night.

Louisina has very bumpy roads. Reading Mad magazine from the sleeper is next to impossible.

Driving through Texas takes a long, long, long, long time.

Don't play with the CB radio.

If you can't eat all of your Shish-Kabob at the Sizzler, don't order it.

The best truck stops are the ones that have gift shops, especially if you can get grandma by herself with the cash. I prefer T/A and Petro. Flying J has the largest sodas known to man, and the smiley-face station, while offering cheap diesel, is quite dull.

Dwight Yoakam sang about it, but I literally walked the streets of Bakersfield to buy $100 worth of scratch off lottery tickets.

If possible, always stay at a Best Western.

There is nothing to do in Oklahoma.

Flagstaff has good showers, until you see your grandpa wash his ass with a cloth because there is only one free shower per fill-up.

Weigh stations are a bummer.

Don't slow down, go around.

Florida isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Log books are fun for kids, not so much for drivers.

Don't put quarters into those stuffed animal claw machines, or the vibrating bed.

If you put a penny on a railroad track, it looks very cool after the train runs over it. But you need to put down at least five to get one back.

Don't put pennies on the railroad tracks.

Even if your grandparents saw you nude as a baby, it doesn't make it easier to shower in front of them in Flagstaff when you are 12, regardless of what they say.

No, you can't drive.

No, you should have peed earlier.

No, we're sleeping in the truck tonight. You spend the motel money at the Petro gift shop.

Seeing your grandparents drunk on Coors and wine coolers in a Lodi motel is almost as bad as seeing grandpa wash his ass with a cloth in Flagstaff.

Always get the buffet.

The white pills are vitamins.

So there you have it. My experience on the open road with grandpa summed up in one post. I learned a lot. I know how to navigate. I know how to make good time. I know how to be thrifty on a trip. And most of all, I know that truckers deserve full respect, but never to be one.

 

 

There has been much discussion over Atul Gawande's expose' on the health care costs in McAllen, Texas. Allow me to add some back-story.

Back in 2001 the factory I worked in for over a decade relocated to Reynosa, Mexico. A group of us were sent down to train our replacements. We stayed just across the border at, guess where, McAllen, TX. I was there for just over a month

On the heels of President Obama's choice of Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter in the US Supreme Court, this seems like a good time as any to bring up some criminal justice-related issues. More specifically, the current Court has not been kind in protecting the rights of those accused of committing a crime. Here are a few examples:

 

Arizona v. Johnson: Allows police to perform a stop-and-frisk search during a traffic stop whether or not the suspect has committed or is committing a crime.

 

Kansas v. Ventris: Allows testimony gathered in violation of the Sixth Amendment admissible at trial for the purpose of impeaching a witness.

 

Herring V. US: Allows illegally seized evidence to be presented as evidence at trial if the illegality was caused by police error.

 

And today, the New York Times reports this gem out of Michigan:

 

 

 The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it easier for the police and prosecutors to question suspects, lifting some restrictions on when defendants can be interrogated without their lawyers present.

 

In a 5-to-4 ruling, the court overturned its 1986 opinion in a Michigan case, which forbade the police from interrogating a defendant once he invoked his right to counsel at an arraignment or a similar proceeding.

 

In a nutshell, the old law held that if you had a lawyer on retainer or invoked your right to counsel the police could not question you any further even if you wanted to make a statement.

 

Some may say that this is common sense, that if a guy wants to talk to the police without his lawyer he should be able to. But there are a couple of things wrong with this argument:

 

First, a person that has retained or requested counsel must have done so for a reason. Any set of circumstances, from police coercion (which is illegal) to police deception (which is perfectly legal) could be used to cause the person to speak without counsel against his own interests.

 

Second, in the heat of the moment a person may make statements under duress. Police have all the incentive to use this fear, confusion, etc to extract a statement without counsel. Counsel is obligated to ensure that his client is capable of making a statement based on the client's interest.

 

Now, I will admit that there have been some good decisions related to criminal justice issues (Arizona v. Gant comes to mind). But criminal justice cases tend to fly under the radar while topics like abortion, religious expression, and gun rights get top billing.

 

Most people accept this fact. It's just people accused of crimes, after all. Remember, though, that the Constitution is like a sweater. You can only pick at it so much before it completely unravels. Also keep this in mind: you, too, could one day be accused of committing a crime and Amendments 4-6 become real important real fast.